FINISHING THE HAT

With great fanfare Stephen Sondheim turned 80 years old in 2010. Between
televised star-studded birthday celebrations, the many productions of his work
around the country, the self-referential Sondheim on Sondheim at Studio 54, two
spectacularly insightful interviews with the adoring, and uncharacteristically,
reverent Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” [1], and Mark Eden Horowitz’ updated
“Sondheim on Music” [2], Sondheim fans have had ample opportunities to explore, as
music commentator Rob Kapilow says, “What Makes It Great.” [3]

For cabaret singers who aspire to sing Sondheim, no lessons can compare with those
that can be found between the lines, lyrics, reminiscences, and the gossip in
Sondheim’s own, long awaited book, FINISHING THE HAT: Collected Lyrics (1954-
1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and
Anecdotes (Knopf).

As the subtitle promises, every lyric from Saturday Night (1954) to Merrily We Roll
Along (1981) is here (along with many previously unpublished outtakes), but this book
is much more than a collection of verse. It is a rare glimpse into the process of a
master.

“I think the explication of any craft, when articulated by an experienced

practitioner,” Sondheim writes, “can be not only intriguing, but also valuable… For
example, I don’t cook, nor do I want to, but I read cooking columns with intense and
explicit interest. The technical details echo those, which challenge a songwriter:
timing, balance, form, surface versus substance, and all the rest. They resonate for
me even though I have no desire to braise, parboil, or sauté.”

What singer wouldn’t want to know that their lyricist disdains near (or false) rhymes
or that a regional accent can turn a true (or perfect) rhyme into a false one? So,
take note: when Sondheim writes dawn, he intends it to rhyme with lawn, but not gone
or on. “A perfect rhyme snaps the word, and with it the thought, vigorously into
place,” he says. With anything less, “by the time the ear has figured out what is
actually being sung, the singer is in the middle of the next line and the listener has to
waste his concentration on catching up.”

The book is organized show by show, but also around his series of “Principles” and
”Guidelines”, meant for lyric writers, but from which singers can draw great insight.
Sondheim illustrates the primacy of the Principle “God Is in the Details.” with this
example from the final verse of “Losing My Mind” from Follies. Sally sings:

I dim the lights

And think about you
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you.

“Using the word ‘to’ instead of ‘and’… takes Sally a step further into her obsession
with Ben,” Sondheim explains. God, indeed.

Even mistakes are enlightening. For example, the lyricist muses that he committed a
“cardinal sin” by mis-stressing a word in his lyric for “Everybody Says Don’t”, from
Anyone Can Whistle. “If YOU do them.” Who talks like that? That lyric is one of
Sondheim’s regrets, and a singer’s conundrum.

By dissecting his work in such detail, Sondheim drops little gifts for performers,
including passing reference to technique. The rapid patter sections of “Getting
Married Today” from Company, for example, are meant to be sung in one breath.
Sondheim has thoughtfully alternated vowel and consonant sounds to make them
easier to articulate. That is until, he admits, he “muddles the fluency” with some
sounds that are “glued-together” followed by a potential train wreck of utterances.
“In the best rapid patter songs, the faster you sing, the easier it is – you need less
breath and the words flow trippingly off the tongue.”

So why don’t cabaret singers take on Sondheim more often? It’s not just that
Sondheim’s music is marked by wild intervals, alarming dissonance, tricky rhythms,
and challenging lyrics, but that he writes lyrics “not just to be sung but to be sung in
particular musicals by individual characters in specific situations.” Sondheim creates
what he calls “playlets that are called songs.” Take Mrs. Lovett out of her pie shop
and all you are left with is a bunch of great puns about the characteristics of 18th
century British occupations.

But Sondheim’s songs cry out for a cabaret style treatment. Many of his songs are
written to intensify character development and facilitate an emotional arc from
coherence to breakdown in a few, dense minutes (e.g.,“Losing My Mind,” “Getting
Married,” and “Epiphany” from Sweeney Todd). Out of context, these songs, these
playlets, still offer tremendous opportunities for intimate interpretation, as even
belters Barbara Cook, Bernadette Peters, and Mandy Patinkin have demonstrated.

Volume Two, beginning with Sunday in the Park with George, is due at the end of 2011.
All good things Come to Those who can Wait.

Notes

[1] Sondheim on “Fresh Air” –

October 28, 2010 in connection with “Finishing the Hat”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130732712; April 21, 2010
for his 80th birthday http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=124907187

[2] Mark Eden Horowitz, Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions ,
second edition (Scarecrow Press, 2010)

[3] Rob Kapilow on what makes “Send in the Clowns” great

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94772727